


tonight, we are lonely as shipwrecks (and as lovely as the mermaids' songs about them)

by peaches (crocustongues)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: AU typical violence, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, But Not Much, M/M, Major Character Injury, it is a little graphic, it's all good in the end, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 02:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14250681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocustongues/pseuds/peaches
Summary: in which an earth-shaking Kaiju attack later, Kuroo finds himself in the infirmary, wallowing in sorrow, until he sets out to make some amends and stops feeling so incredibly sorry for himself. Pilots are as Jaegers are, built to power through anything.





	tonight, we are lonely as shipwrecks (and as lovely as the mermaids' songs about them)

**Author's Note:**

> i stayed up most of last night to finish this for bokuroo week i love them both so much and the prompt was flowers for day 7 and obviously true to brand the fic has very little to do w the prompt °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

This isn’t the first time Kuroo’s managed to escape from the infirmary. He takes a second to hide in the shadows, surrounded by the constant lull of muted thuds and clangs of the Tokyo Shatterdome and wonders if he can ever catch a good night’s sleep like Bokuto does, calm and serene and dreamless. Then he thinks of that horrible Cat-III Kaiju—codename Hellgar—and promptly changes his mind, jaw clenched painfully.

With the practiced ease of someone who’s run from authority figures before, Kuroo makes his way down the stairs, makes a left, left again, hides until the J-Techs pass, _god_ , he hopes it isn’t Sugawara who can, no joke, _smell_ him and his intentions. He waits for a few apprehensive moments, holding his breath, blowing the air out in a _whoosh_ that lifts his choppy bangs up as soon as the footsteps fade away. Down, down, _down_ he goes, through the hallway on the right, and truly, Tokyo Shatterdome is a labyrinth. He can hear the whirr of machinery and the tang of metal on metal. He sneaks past someone who looks suspiciously like Sugawara and hopes for the best. 

He cranes his neck around, past the almost-reassembled figures of Blue Vulcan and Spike Glory, but he can’t see her _anywhere_ —

“ _What_ ,” begins an annoyed voice, right at his shoulder, “do you _think_ you’re doing?”

In that moment Kuroo’s certain Sugawara Koushi has a sixth sense for interfering with Kuroo and his goddamn business. He’s also incredibly afraid of Sugawara Koushi for the exact same reason. He also credits himself with a certain amount of courage for not jumping out of his skin.

“Hey, Sugawara. Long time, no see. How’re the kids doing? I hear your—“

“Answer me,” Sugawara cuts in, eyes down to slits with a near murderous aura about him.

“I’m, uh. Looking for Nocturne. Seen her around?”

Kuroo’s hopeful. When Kenma’d visited the infirmary, he’d assured Kuroo of Nocturne’s safety. He’d seemed uncomfortable talking about her, but Kuroo had hopes. It’s the few things he dares to hold on to these days.

Sugawara’s demeanour softens at the mention of Ace Nocturne. He turns and points Kuroo to the repair bay, not quite meeting his eyes. “You’ll find her in there,” he says, moving away, like he had other, more pressing issues to deal with, which, Kuroo assumed was fair enough. He nods his thanks and makes his way to the repair bay, trying not to let the worst case scenario poison is thoughts. The second he enters, he’s met with a resounding sense of doom. 

The carcass of Ace Nocture lies there, lifeless and powerless. 

He reaches out blindly, holding back tears, he reaches out to touch the charred remnants of Nocturne’s foot and tries to even his breathing.

 _It’s only a Jaeger_ he tells himself. It’s _just_ a Jaeger, it can be rebuilt, repaired, _renewed_ , even. The pilots were more important than their Jaegers, weren’t they? All that had mattered was they were _safe_. _Bokuto_ was safe. _They were alive_. 

“Kuroo?” A voice calls for him from above, but he can’t reach out. Pain flares in his arm and it’s all he can do to keep himself breathing. His vision swims and he bites down to keep himself from screaming, tasting blood somewhere on his tongue. He can practically _hear_ the Kaiju’s thundering warcry.

“Kuroo!” A resounding clang of materials falling to the floor and Kuroo feels strong hands on his shoulders.

“Oi, medical assistance in the repair bay, Cadet, _I’m talking to you!_ ”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

In Kuroo’s defence, he’s terrible at saying No to Bokuto Koutarou. Which is probably why they’ve wound up in this situation in the first place—wrapped around the Kaiju’s arm like a determined monkey. Ace Nocturne, it seemed, was more like Bokuto than like Kuroo, in terms of never knowing when the fuck to give up. Kuroo can feel the conn-pod rattle as the monster howls in fury.

“Let’s send this one back to hell, Tetsu!” Bokuto roars and Kuroo grins wickedly. This was their win. No Kaiju was going to take that away from them. They’ve an anniversary party to attend tonight, after all. 

“Aww, are you thinking about our anniversary, Tetsu?” Bokuto’s voice surrounds him and Kuroo manages a soft affirmation. There’s something romantic about battling a giant monster straight from your nightmares alongside the love of your life.

“I’m the love of your life?” Bokuto crows, clearly gleeful.

Kuroo’s ears turn red. “We’ve been dating for three whole years, shut up!”

“ _Hello, hello, lovebirds, it’s us!_ ” The moment is shattered by one Oikawa Tooru, and they can clearly envision Iwaizumi rolling his eyes at his partner.

“ _We’ve come to kick some Kaiju ass, so sit back, hold tight, and don’t die._ ”

The combined forces of Blue Vulcan and Ace Nocturne manage to drive the Kaiju into the ground, and for a second they rejoice, until the Kaiju unfurls itself and the look it gives them is truly hateful. It gathers itself and that is when Nocturne finds herself trying to immobilise her prey, stubbornly holding on to a limb, while Vulcan keeps it at shooting range with her missiles.

“ _Stay clear, we’ve got a good shot_ ,” Iwaizumi orders over the comm, gunning for a gambit, and Nocturne does her best. The Kaiju, however, does not care, and the barb in its tail catches Nocturne and rips her arm off. For a second the Drift is silent, both Kuroo and Bokuto struck speechless.

“ _Ace Nocturne, what is your status?_ ”

“We’re alright,” Kuroo grunts, “I think we’ve lost mobility, right arm ripped…”

Kuroo pauses. The conn-pod has split open. He could smell the open air.

Bokuto’s hanging off the conn-pod, unconscious and bloody. 

“…Off,” he finishes, desperately trying to reach Bokuto, hand outstretched, both physically and in the Drift. He’s met with a silence like he’s never known before.

“ _Nocturne?_ ”

The world stills on its axis and he can’t breathe. Hauling him up, he cradles Bokuto’s neck and wills himself not to cry as Nocturne is pushed into the waters. He can vaguely make out someone screaming over the comm. A colossal splash and a tremendous sound a fury—from the Kaiju, Kuroo supposes faintly—later, all is silent outside. Water seeps into the conn-pod, flooding the floor, and Kuroo, left to his own devices in a haze of loneliness, doesn’t remember when he starts crying, but he does, and the tears don’t stop until he blacks out.

Much later, when he comes to, Iwaizumi tells him Blue Vulcan brought them home, and Kuroo doesn’t react until he feels a sting in his shoulder joints. Bokuto’s arm was ripped off, Iwaizumi says, solemnly. Kuroo nods a silent thank you. He doesn’t want any more news. He just wants to sleep. He’s asked about Bokuto a hundred times, but no one’s cared to tell him a single word. 

Until Bokuto himself reaches out for him in the Drift.

“ _Tetsu…_ ”

Kuroo’s eyes snap open and he waits with bated breath for a recurrence, almost positive it wasn’t just a half-baked dream.

“ _Tetsu…_ ”

It comes again, and Kuroo jolts out of bed. There’s an anniversary he has to celebrate with someone.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“I think it’s the Ghost Drift, Yaku-san, I’ve heard it happens some—“

“ _Yes_ , I’m aware, now go fetch someone, we can’t leave him here like this—“

Kuroo cracks an eye open, pain subsiding, phantom of the past. He waves away Yaku’s hand for help and stands up, breathing shaky and uneven, blinking slowly at Yaku and the Cadet.

“You alright?” Yaku asks, genuine concern laced in his voice, as he shoos the Cadet away.

“Yeah.” Yaku squints at him. “I’m _fine_ ,” Kuroo repeats. He really is, he’s not the one asleep in the infirmary with only one arm. He’s _fine_.

“What were you doing down here? Didn’t Kenma tell you Nocturne’s out of commission for now?” Oh. Kenma probably _had_ mentioned it, but Kuroo had wanted to come see for himself.

“Yeah, no. I sort of wanted to see her for myself. We were all pretty banged up back then,” Kuroo says ruefully.

Yaku snorts. “Don’t worry. Nocturne’s just like you two. Doesn’t know when to give up. She’ll be good as new in a few weeks.”

Kuroo smiles then, sincere and bright, full-tilt at Nocturne. He has more than complete faith in Yaku’s abilities and despite his reassurances, albeit empty, Nocturne was anything but _just a Jaeger_. She was part of their little family, him and Bokuto and Ace Nocturne.

“Hey, Yakkun, got some spare change?”

Yaku nods in confusion and digs through his overall pockets for a few hundred yen. Kuroo takes it and blows him a kiss and ruffles Yaku’s head, and runs out the back door of the repair bay, Yaku yelling at him to _slow down, idiot_.

He doesn’t slow down, though, until he reaches the little flower shop one block over from the Shatterdome, and asks for the largest bouquet of roses they can make him under ten minutes. The man at the counter, gives him a look and gets to work while Kuroo tries to catch his breath.

The bouquet is, admittedly, huge and Kuroo wonders for a second if they’ll let him enter the infirmary with it, and he tries explaining to the florist that he couldn’t possibly pay him for all the flowers. Damn Yaku with his measly pocket-change. The florist waves away his concerns and tries to shoo him away.

“You look like you really need it,” he says, seriously, spraying tiny succulents on the shelf behind him.

“I— _Thank you_. Really,” Kuroo’s struck by the man’s generosity and takes off with the bouquet, trying not to feel too self-conscious of the eyes that follow him to the Shatterdome. He bursts into the infirmary room, just as Bokuto’s waking up. It’s jarring to see his entire left wound up in bandages and it breaks Kuroo’s heart.

“Hey,” he smiles from behind the truly humongous bunch of roses. It’s ridiculous, but then again, Kuroo’s always been ridiculous about Bokuto.

Bokuto blinks back owlishly, smiling slow and wide. Kuroo’s heart skips a few beats at it. The morphine must’ve taken a lot out of him, but he’s glad Bokuto’s not in pain.

“Seeing as I missed our anniversary, here’s—“ Kuroo’s throat catches at how close they’d been to missing every single anniversary, not just this one, for the rest of their lives. 

Bokuto laughs softly, a shadow of its usual loud cheer. “You got me flowers? What is this, Tetsu, what next? A dinner date?” He teases.

“For you, Kou? Yeah. Maybe lunch, I wanna nap some more.”

Bokuto laughs a lot harder at that, laughter which turns into coughing and Kuroo panics a little before Bokuto pulls him into a kiss, soft and deep. A visceral feeling takes over Kuroo as Bokuto’s tongue touches the roof of his mouth. 

He feels more alive now than ever before.

**Author's Note:**

> jaeger names were picked randomly because symbolism and i are not friends  
> the kaiju is named hellgar because that's what houndoom (the pokemon) is called in japanese 
> 
> the title is from my lovely friend [@iknowsush's](https://www.instagram.com/iknowsush/) poem (day 7)


End file.
